Author: Bharath Ramaraj

Uttam Singh, Harmanpreet Singh and Jarmanpreet Singh netted the goals as India comfortably beat South Korea 4-1 in the second semi-final of the Asian Champions Trophy, on Monday, at the Moqi Hockey Training Base, in Hulunbuir, China. India will take on China in the summit clash, on September 17. Right from the first minute of the first quarter, India looked busy and made enough penetrations into the opponent’s ‘D’. In the 4th minute itself, Abhishek Nain almost scored, but Kim Jaehan, the goalkeeper, used his right-hand and then blocked the attempted shot with his stick. India were soon rewarded for…

The first ball of the second innings of the 2023-24 Vijay Trophy semifinal between Tamil Nadu and Haryana seemed like an event in itself. Anshul Kamboj, the skilful pace bowler, charged to the crease with a burst of vigour. He didn’t exactly lift his front knee around stump high, but when he thumped the braced front leg and released the ball, there was a fair bit of venom behind it. Basically, it hastened off the deck and Baba Aparajith hurriedly offered a straight bat to keep it out. The crux of that offering from Kamboj was he had made the…

With a busy home summer and, more importantly, an Australian tour on the horizon, the selectors would have their cameras zoomed in on the performances of a number of quick bowlers presently bowling in the Duleep Trophy. VidwathKaverappa and Harshit Rana, who took six wickets between them in the first innings of India A, are a couple of those pace bowlers eyeing a ticket to Australia. Rana, the tall and well-built bowler, has the right attributes to succeed Down Under. He showcased some of those skills on Day 1. Harshit extracted bounce by hitting the deck hard, and also found…

In 2021, there was a short video of Yash Dayal’s bowling on YouTube. Obviously, by then, Dayal had already made his List A and first-class debut for Uttar Pradesh. A year later, he ended up playing in the IPL too. However, this one video gave an indicator about Dayal’s strengths. From round the wicket, and wide of the crease, he got one to angle in and then straighten off the pitch to open up the batter on the defence and castle him. He seemed to have deceptive pace too. Some three years later, Dayal’s tactics were rewarded with three wickets…

Yastika Bhatia and Shreyanka Patil have come through their respective fitness tests ahead of the senior Indian women’s team camp at the National Cricket Academy, which is set to start on Monday, according to sources. All the members of the Indian squad, alongside those in the reserves will report for the camp. Bhatia, the wicket-keeper-bat, sustained a posterior cruciate ligament injury in the knee when India took on Bangladesh in a T20I series, earlier in the year. Meanwhile, Shreyanka had suffered a fracture to her fourth finger of the left hand during the India-Pakistan game in the Asia Cup. The…

The longest format of the game brings out certain subtleties to the fore that may not be on display in limited-over cricket. We saw glimpses of it with KL Rahul’s technical efficiency on Day 4 of the Duleep Trophy encounter between India A and India B. Just zoom your lenses on the 31st over of the second session. The first ball was angled in from round the wicket by the left-arm pace bowler, Yash Dayal. Rahul duly loaded up his back foot, then pressed and released it. Subsequently, the front foot covered the off-stump and he showed the bat-maker’s name…

India B’s bowlers were relentless in the second innings as they skittled out India A for 198 to win their opening Duleep Trophy fixture by 76 runs in Bengaluru. KL Rahul held India A’s innings together for a while before falling for a well-made 121-ball 57. In pursuit of a sizeable target of 275, India A needed a good start. Unfortunately for them, it didn’t work out that way. Mayank Agarwal was the first one to be dismissed, with Nitish Kumar Reddy grabbing a superb catch in the slip cordon. Yash Dayal bagged that scalp. Shubman Gill and Riyan Parag,…

As Sarfaraz Khan and Rishabh Pant took their guard in the second session of Day 3 of the Duleep Trophy game at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, India A bowlers perhaps were sensing some trouble. We are basically looking at two maverick batters, possessing their own brand of improvisational brilliance. Not surprisingly, what followed was an-hour-and-a-half of thrill-a-minute batting by the duo. It almost seemed as if there was a contest within a contest going on in the middle, as the duo tried to match each other’s stroke-play. Among the two, it is a question of who is a little more unorthodox.…

There is something different about watching a cricket match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. We witnessed a sample of it when India A took on India B in the Duleep Trophy game. There was enough action and drama in the middle, with Musheer Khan once again dominating the show. And then there was some action off the field too. For the Duleep Trophy, just one stand has been kept open for the fans. And that top-tier stand was buzzing with enough activity. To illustrate the point, let’s revisit the completion of India B’s innings. When Navdeep Saini was dismissed after playing…

“Outside of cricket, nothing excites me. It is just cricket and my family. And that is the reason why I am pushing myself,” Nitish Kumar Reddy said with a glint in his eyes when asked about whether he has any other hobbies. Somewhere it also told you about how the Nitish’s inner belief keeps motivating him to look for continuous improvement. Perhaps, there is a backstory connected to Nitish’s sheer determination to succeed? To delve deeper, we have to transport ourselves back to about a decade ago. When Nitish was around 11-12 years of age, his father, Mutyalu, was set…